On Their Bench
by Caz251
Summary: Summary: It all started there, on that park bench, when Harry encountered Marcus Flint once more. Pre-slash/slash. Harry/Marcus. Written for story lottery. Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, no matter how much I wish it were so.


**Title:** On Their Bench  
**Author:** caz251  
**Fandom: **Harry Potter  
**Characters:** Harry Potter, Marcus Flint, OFC!Esmerelda Flint  
**Pairing: **Harry/Marcus  
**Genre:** romance  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Prompt:** 03 story_lottery a park bench  
**Summary:** It all started there, on that park bench, when Harry encountered Marcus Flint once more.  
**Spoilers: **General spoilers for the books  
**Warning(s): **Slash/Pre-slash  
**Word Count:** 1192  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter, no matter how much I wish it were so.

This was where it had all began, this bench was where his life had changed. He had never expected to meet the elder Slytherin in a muggle park, but he had, right here on this bench. The man, for he was at least four years older than him, had sat down next to him on the bench, and had completely ignored him, instead his focus was on a small child playing in the sandpit. He had looked at the little girl, and had realised with a start that he could see some of the older man in her features. The girl was about three, or she had looked it anyway, meaning that the Slytherin had still been at Hogwarts when she was born.

The man had given a short grunt when he noticed where he had been watching, before he glanced at me, recognition showing on his face. "Potter." He had bitten out, surprisingly with no malice.

"Flint." He replied in kind, before settling for politeness. "How are you?"

He then let out another grunt, one that I interpreted to mean 'none of your business, keep out of my life.' The Slytherin did not attempt to start a conversation with him, and Harry decided to leave the man in peace. He got up from the bench, muttering a 'see you, Flint' before he left the park.

He made his way back to Grimmauld Place, checking to make sure that he wasn't being followed. Flint's appearance in a muggle play park had unsettled him some. As soon as he was back in his home he started to go over in his head all that he knew about Marcus Flint. He was a Slytherin, five years above him at Hogwarts, but had to repeat a year. He was Quidditch Captain and a Chaser. He had become Lord Flint three years ago when his father had died of a heart attack, the healers having proven it to be a death of natural causes and not poison or potion assisted. His mother had been caught and sent to Azkaban for the murder of a half-blood woman a few years older than Marcus.

The Flints as a whole while they supported the ideals of the Dark Lord they had never entered into his ranks. He knew that with Flint's father's death that he had become Lord Flint and that when his mother was convicted that he had gone into isolation. He couldn't help but think that the little girl he had been with was the reason for his isolation. The child had been beautiful, from his observation he had noted that she had Flint's eyes and nose, but they seemed to work well with the features she had inherited from her mother.

Harry went through the rest of the day on autopilot, completing all the necessary tasks he had to do, but his mind was fixated on Flint. He wasn't sure why he couldn't redirect his thoughts elsewhere, but he did know that his curiosity would no doubt get the better of him. He took a dreamless selep potion before he went to bed, hoping for an uninterrupted night of sleep. Voldemort may be dead and he no longer witnessed the atrocities he committed through his eyes, but he had enough terrifying memories to keep even Moody awake.

The next day he went back to the park at the same time, not because he wanted to see Flint again, but because it had become part of his daily routine. At least that's what he was telling himself, or trying to anyway. As far as he was concerned his trips to the children's play park were nothing unusual, it was a trip he'd been making daily since Hogwarts had ended for the holidays the week previously. He had taken to spending a while each day just watching the world go by, watching the children of the world at play, something he had fought to protect. It was for them that he had killed Voldemort, the children, not any of the adults that had forced a child to fight for them only to slander him when they felt like it. No he had destroyed Voldemort for the children of the world, for the future, as that's what they were. His trips to the park were only to see what he had saved living as they should, or that's what he tried to convince himself anyway.

Deep down he knew that he was lying to himself, but he knew that there was nothing that he could do to change his thoughts, he was in denial and would probably stay there for a while. Marcus had been at the park the next day and the day after that, it seemed to become a pattern for them, each day the same for weeks. Harry would arrive at the park, not long after Marcus would sit next to him on the bench as the little girl played in the sandpit. Then one day, on that bench, it all changed. Marcus spoke to him, it wasn't much, just a polite greeting, but it changed everything. After that day each following day they spoke, even if only a few words. By the end of the summer, when he had to get ready for his return to Hogwarts he had been sure that they could at least count each other as a friend.

They had spent many hours in total sat on that bench talking, either about themselves, the war, sometimes even just the weather, but their relationship had definitely changed. During the first Hogsmeade weekend he realised how much it had changed when he noticed Marcus sat on a bench just off the main street waiting for him. His daughter Esmerelda was sat playing in a portable pit, a creation of Fred and George's, one that wasn't actually a prank, but a children's toy with different coloured sand. He had smiled before making his way over to them and sitting down next to Marcus and telling him about how Hogwarts had been. Each Hogsmeade weekend was the same in that Marcus and Esmerelda would be waiting for him, in a strange parody of their normal meeting place.

Hogwarts finally let out at the end of the year, and Harry couldn't have been happier, he'd graduated and things could go back to normal. He moved back into Grimmauld Place, and continued with his own routines, his first thing being to go back to the park. He sat on the bench and waited, smiling at Marcus when he arrived, it was so much better to be back in their park with their bench, with Esmerelda's sandpit. It had seemed wrong for them to meet like this in Hogsmeade, it wasn't their place or their bench. It was that first day back from Hogwarts that everything really changed, things had been changing gradually in his life since Voldemort's defeat, but this was the day things became clear to him. It was one perfect moment of clarity that created many more as he leant closer to Marcus on the bench, pressing forward and stealing the first of many kisses.


End file.
